United Bank for Africa (UBA) has released its audited financial results for the first half of 2024, showing that it recorded double-digit growth in its gross earnings and operating incomes.
According to the report, the bank reported a 39.6 per cent increase in its gross earnings, which rose from N981.77 billion in 2023 to N1.371 trillion in June 2024.
The impressive performance is contained in its audited financials released to the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) on Monday.
The financial report also showed that interest income increased by 134.3 per cent to N1.003 trillion, up from N428.2 billion recorded in June last year, while total assets went up by 37.2 per cent from N20.6 trillion in December 2023 to close at N28.3 trillion.
Customer deposits, also leapt by 33.7 per cent in the same period to close at N23.2 trillion up from N17.3 trillion recorded at the end of 2023.
The financial results also showed that profit before tax (PBT) which stood at N403 billion in June 2023, closed the half year at N402 billion, while profit after tax(PAT) dropped slightly from N378 billion to N316 billion in the year under consideration.
However, the banks’ shareholders funds increased by 47 per cent from N2.03 trillion in December 2023, to N2.99 trillion.
In line with the bank’s culture of paying both interim and final cash dividend, the Board of Directors of UBA Plc has declared an interim dividend of N2.00 per share for every ordinary share of N0.50 each held by its shareholders, representing 300% increase compared to the N0.50 declared in the similar period of 2023.
Commenting on the financial report, the UBA’s group managing director and chief executive officer, Mr. Oliver Alawuba, said: “UBA Group has continued to deliver strong double-digit growth in high quality and sustainable banking revenue streams, driven by a focused growth in balance sheet, transaction and digital banking businesses across geographies in line with our strategic goals.
“The group’s performance has been buoyed by consistent strong growth in all core and sustainable banking income lines.
“Our intermediation business showed strong growth with net interest income expanding by 143% YoY to N675 billion.”
He added that as the group continued to intensify its customer acquisition drive, “we are making significant investments in technology, data analytics, product research and innovation to enhance our value proposition and customer experience.”
Also commenting on the report, the executive director finance and risk, Mr Ugo Nwaghodoh, said: “Our cost optimisation provides scope for further moderation as we explore options towards a drastic reduction of our foreign currency denominated cost components, robotizing and automation of processes and application of artificial intelligence to our operations.”
He also stated that the group will focus on effectively managing the heightened credit, operational, cyber and information security risks, as it continues to conduct its business within the tenets of our moderate risk appetite in alignment with our sustainability goals.
“The group has made significant progress and is on course to shore up its share capital to support its medium to long term aspirations, whilst aligning with the recent regulatory requirement in Nigeria and other jurisdictions that we operate in,” he added.
